Open Movement offers free weekly movement improvisations and artist-led workshops in Performance Space’s theatres. Participants are invited to move to curated soundscapes by various artists and musicians together but in no particular way, every Sunday from 12-4pm. At 4pm we will shift to Open Movement Workshops where various artists share their self-proclaimed practices of embodiment, dance, and performance exploration.
In its second year, we are working with artists who are interested in the role embodiment can play in the process of healing. Artists will build these practices over a series of three workshops or in one-off emerging practice forms, offering the opportunity for the artists and participants to evolve their practice over time. The workshops inform the improvisation and vice versa as we build on ways of regulating the nervous system and expanding what it means to process information in the body. Once a month a dj or musician will be invited to play live for open improvisation. *No dance experience of any kind is necessary nor is it necessary to attend every class in a series. But you’re welcome to!
Theatres are located on the 4th floor with elevator access, gender-neutral restrooms, and a sprung floor equipped with a house sound system.
Open Movement is a revival of the eponymous program that started in 1979 and was at the foundational and collectivizing core of Performance Space 122 (now Performance Space New York).
Open Movement is facilitated by Monica Mirabile and Ana Beatriz Sepúlveda, with workshops and musicians organized by Monica Mirabile. For any questions, Monica can be reached at monica@performancespacenewyork.org. Visitors are encouraged to take a look at Open Movement’s Community Guidelines.
How is the body a material to be explored, and what is the criteria by which we interpret the movement of others? How do we understand liveness, and how can it be crafted, formed, molded and designed into choreography? Participants in this workshop will explore various group movement scores to expand the infinite ways in which we can be together. Everyone of all ability and experience level is welcome.
Reawaken, revisit and remind yourself of the vastness of your inner space.
Please join this intergenerational (60+ and younger) journey, this
archeological dig to re-discover your authentic movement and the flow of
your inner life force. By cultivating sustained attention on the subtle connections between your body and mind a new opportunity for self discovery can arise. The natural vitality that resides within you can be accessed and engaged with through the use of music, breath work and mindfulness techniques to awaken
sensory awareness.
The creative spirit is alive and well in our body and by gathering as a group to experiment with spontaneous movement we focus on emerging themes
and the collective narrative that develops which is the connective tissue to
our shared humanity. We will try to give meaning to these qualities which
arise as we work together.
No prior experience in dance or performance is necessary. This is not a
dance workshop but a way to express that which cannot be put into words
but becomes a shared experience and a profound form of communication.
Just come with an open mind and a spirit of adventure.
May we have the freedom to engage in this workshop without self-
judgement or judgement of others.
Reawaken, revisit and remind yourself of the vastness of your inner space.
Please join this intergenerational (60+ and younger) journey, this
archeological dig to re-discover your authentic movement and the flow of
your inner life force. By cultivating sustained attention on the subtle connections between your body and mind a new opportunity for self discovery can arise. The natural vitality that resides within you can be accessed and engaged with through the use of music, breath work and mindfulness techniques to awaken
sensory awareness.
The creative spirit is alive and well in our body and by gathering as a group to experiment with spontaneous movement we focus on emerging themes
and the collective narrative that develops which is the connective tissue to
our shared humanity. We will try to give meaning to these qualities which
arise as we work together.
No prior experience in dance or performance is necessary. This is not a
dance workshop but a way to express that which cannot be put into words
but becomes a shared experience and a profound form of communication.
Just come with an open mind and a spirit of adventure.
May we have the freedom to engage in this workshop without self-
judgement or judgement of others.
In this workshop, we will engage the gestures, shapes, body and eye movements from the Indian classical dance Odissi as psycho-physical tools to explore and create an inner landscape. We will look at the performative as yogic, the decorative as utilitarian, the breath as bejeweled. The rigorous and refined traditional dance is made raw, wild, therapeutic and accessible. We will also use the ancient yogic tools of asana, mantra, mudra, and pranayama in a more open, improvisational fashion – emphasizing playfulness, tenderness, and pleasure. We will spotlight the curved line of the body, hip movements, and the spherical rather than linear spatial plane. We will investigate the influence of exterior movement on the inner world – the intuitive sculpting of space around oneself as sensual delight and a self-empowering method to take our health, literally, into our own hands. We will be guided by the concept of Sringara, the erotic/romantic Rasa (flavor/feeling) in the classical Indian arts. Sringara can mean to adorn, to decorate, to beautify. What is it to adorn our inner world? Through gesture and movement we pluck the strings that connect us to the divine – we nod knowingly, tenderly, coyly. We partake in INWARD ORNAMENTATION.
In this workshop, we will engage the gestures, shapes, body and eye movements from the Indian classical dance Odissi as psycho-physical tools to explore and create an inner landscape. We will look at the performative as yogic, the decorative as utilitarian, the breath as bejeweled. The rigorous and refined traditional dance is made raw, wild, therapeutic and accessible. We will also use the ancient yogic tools of asana, mantra, mudra, and pranayama in a more open, improvisational fashion – emphasizing playfulness, tenderness, and pleasure. We will spotlight the curved line of the body, hip movements, and the spherical rather than linear spatial plane. We will investigate the influence of exterior movement on the inner world – the intuitive sculpting of space around oneself as sensual delight and a self-empowering method to take our health, literally, into our own hands. We will be guided by the concept of Sringara, the erotic/romantic Rasa (flavor/feeling) in the classical Indian arts. Sringara can mean to adorn, to decorate, to beautify. What is it to adorn our inner world? Through gesture and movement we pluck the strings that connect us to the divine – we nod knowingly, tenderly, coyly. We partake in INWARD ORNAMENTATION.
Free with RSVP
In this movement workshop we will focus on graphic and text-based dance scores. Participants will be guided through improvisational forms and drawing exercises exploring various dance notation systems: signs, symbols, scribbles, numbers, words, figures, and so on. We will work from existing scores and create our own to perform as a group. Everyone is welcome to attend. No dance or drawing experience is required.
Where does pleasure live in the body? How can we experience pleasure outside of its current architecture? Does pleasure exist where there is grief? Can pleasure be friends with depression or nah?
Pleasure Pulse is rooted in care. Together we’ll investigate what it means to feel good while abandoning the outside world and its normal productions of pleasure. We will tap into our bodies through pilates, sound and explorations of matter through the gamification of movement. This class is designed for us to expand on the infinite ways to experience joy together, as our hot brilliant selves.
BODYSPELL: Herbal Knowledge Share + Somatic Plant Meditation + Improvised Movement Session is a 3-Part Series… MUGWORT—PELVIS, HAWTHORN—HEART, BLUE VERVAIN—THROAT
We’ll open with a brief knowledge share around the herb including medicinal actions, ethnobotany + folklore. Then, Plants guide us as we meditate and move to awaken body awareness—exploring the synesthetic interrelation of our senses, ideas, and emotions.
Feel the entanglement of our “internal” and “external” worlds.
Ground gently or dissolve into ecstatic unity. We are Nature.
Herbal tincture available for purchase ($10 small or $20 large, alcohol-free options available) or bring your own to smell + taste .
—Includes some very brief + gentle strength exercises with modifications for all bodies .
—Designed to be accessible to those living with limited mobility or chronic pain.
—No experience required.
—Socks suggested.
BODYSPELL: Herbal Knowledge Share + Somatic Plant Meditation + Improvised Movement Session is a 3-Part Series… MUGWORT—PELVIS, HAWTHORN—HEART, BLUE VERVAIN—THROAT
We’ll open with a brief knowledge share around the herb including medicinal actions, ethnobotany + folklore. Then, Plants guide us as we meditate and move to awaken body awareness—exploring the synesthetic interrelation of our senses, ideas, and emotions.
Feel the entanglement of our “internal” and “external” worlds.
Ground gently or dissolve into ecstatic unity. We are Nature.
Herbal tincture available for purchase ($10 small or $20 large, alcohol-free options available) or bring your own to smell + taste .
—Includes some very brief + gentle strength exercises with modifications for all bodies .
—Designed to be accessible to those living with limited mobility or chronic pain.
—No experience required.
—Socks suggested.
BODYSPELL: Herbal Knowledge Share + Somatic Plant Meditation + Improvised Movement Session is a 3-Part Series… MUGWORT—PELVIS, HAWTHORN—HEART, BLUE VERVAIN—THROAT
We’ll open with a brief knowledge share around the herb including medicinal actions, ethnobotany + folklore. Then, Plants guide us as we meditate and move to awaken body awareness—exploring the synesthetic interrelation of our senses, ideas, and emotions.
Feel the entanglement of our “internal” and “external” worlds.
Ground gently or dissolve into ecstatic unity. We are Nature.
Herbal tincture available for purchase ($10 small or $20 large, alcohol-free options available) or bring your own to smell + taste .
—Includes some very brief + gentle strength exercises with modifications for all bodies .
—Designed to be accessible to those living with limited mobility or chronic pain.
—No experience required.
—Socks suggested.
The witness the shield the blade and the word is the body is the word, is about the words we hold within ourselves and in between each other.
The witness the shield the blade and the word is the body is the word, is about the words we can sing but not say, the words we can name but are unknowable. We form our mouths around words every day. What would it be like to form our hands, chest, ass, and feet around words? What shapes are words’ bodies and how have they shaped ours? How do we want them to?
This workshop is a collective conjuring of personal language and movement. It is an inquiry into the social, political and intimate histories of the words that witness us, shield us, and those we wield as blade, whose meanings dissolve into and outside of us, from us and of us.
Free with RSVP
In this workshop you will work within the discord of your own presence: to move forward, less is actually required.
Less is more. I know you know.
You are already enough. I know you know.
You are already your groove. I don’t know if you know.
Release all that.
Remain still.
Remain inside.
Remain inside yourself.
Remain inside your presence.
Let the music in.
Remain inside the music.
Do not reside in front of, behind nor on top of the music.
I know you know.
2 B YOUR GROOVE.
*Bedroom choreography!
*Wear socks!
*Leave your shit at the door!
The central question of this workshop is, “How do we live together? Other questions are: What is community? What is support? What is Utopia? What is world making? What is impossible? What does communism, communing, or sharing feel like in a dance or while making dance (can it last forever, in a memory, like love)? Can dance be a collective endeavor? What is relational endurance? Can dance put me in a deeper relationship with other sentient beings, with organic matter, with objects, with states of being, with dreams & stories, with ancestors, with secrets, with taboo, with bodily fluid, with environments with conflicts, concepts or conundrums?
Dance commune is an experiment in living together.
Dance commune is an experiment in asking questions.
Dance commune is an experiment.
Free with RSVP
Notions on interconnectedness and embodied performance
Join us for Open Movement’s inaugural work-in-progress feedback show. Artists will show a performance they are working on at any stage in a Lofi theater setting as part of Performance Space’s Open Movement program. Audience/participants have the option to engage with the work by giving feedback in written form as well as stay for drinks after the show.
Dance Lawyer recognizes the understanding of change being the only universal constant, as Movement Intelligence. Dances Lawyer would argue applying this acceptance to everything from the shifting of thought to the shifting of weight is applicable and investigation worthy. Dance Lawyer posits this “Movement” does not discriminate across time and space therefore, the study of which should not be limited to one’s current lifetime.
Belief in reincarnation: Helpful but not required
Being actively mobile: Not helpful but not required
Willing to represent your universal right to witness this movement in all forms, be it physical or not: Required
We recommend bringing a mat or blanket.
Open Movement will occur in three parts, each inspired by an aspect of Remains Persist to participate in a 20-minute Resignation Study from 2pm-6pm.
1 – 2:15pm
Organ Work Practice
2 – 6pm
Kennis Hawkins and Lydia Okrent, artists and performers in and around Remains Persist, will facilitate 20-minute Resignation Studies, a scored improvisation intended for 1 to 3 participants at a time. Please RSVP here to participate in a 20-minute Resignation Study from 2 – 6pm.
1 – 6pm
The Neilma Sydney Theater will be curtained off to offer a low stimulus space to move, read, sleep, hang, feel, and coexist. Please join.
We will play with the ‘fawn’ response to perceived danger — in which we bend over backwards, appease the source of threat, or merge with their wishes and needs.
Through improvisational movement and writing we will collectively tune into ourselves. We will un-merge. We will feel fuller in our bodies and in relationship to each other and find embodied spaces of agency.
No dance experience is required.
EXPANSIVE RADIANT BODY is a workshop that focuses on the awareness of the psyche and how it informs our physicality. With eyes closed, we begin with improvisation as a form of guided, physical meditation. This warm up offers possibilities to sync with our individual groove, allowing exploration of movement repercussions that start at the body’s core and reach out externally. We connect emotions with movement, and travel to proper phrasing exercises through Dynamic Release Technique, animal-like floorwork, spirals and turns. Tension is used as staccato and relaxation as legato. Through musical anatomical efficiency, we finally arrive at the “Available Body,” where we connect quality, detail and transitional phrasing with the external space surrounding our bodies. All elements weave together in a choreography that covers internal, conceptual, physical and environmental expansion.
Movement of “Transcestor” Spirit is a practice rooted in ancestor dialogue, including but not limited to movement, sound making, spoken word, and community building. Participants in this workshop will be guided through a series of physical and audial ruptures, used in Ms. z’s work, and will be asked to share personal testimonies of safety.
Movement of “Transcestor” Spirit is a practice rooted in ancestor dialogue, including but not limited to movement, sound making, spoken word, and community building. Participants in this workshop will be guided through a series of physical and audial ruptures, used in Ms. z’s work, and will be asked to share personal testimonies of safety.
Movement of “Transcestor” Spirit is a practice rooted in ancestor dialogue, including but not limited to movement, sound making, spoken word, and community building. Participants in this workshop will be guided through a series of physical and audial ruptures, used in Ms. z’s work, and will be asked to share personal testimonies of safety.
Visual projections as movement prompts live instrumentation and musical selections by Jazzy Romero.
There is a space inside of us that is much wider than we are led to believe- and with the body in motion, we aim to indulge it. Each week we will explore a different access point into our minds, matter and imagination to expand how we perceive and move through our reality. Through group/duet movement, writing, choreography and improvisation we will explore lessons and stories the body reveals and move outside of our perceived limitations.
There is a space inside of us that is much wider than we are led to believe- and with the body in motion, we aim to indulge it. Each week we will explore a different access point into our minds, matter and imagination to expand how we perceive and move through our reality. Through group/duet movement, writing, choreography and improvisation we will explore lessons and stories the body reveals and move outside of our perceived limitations.
There is a space inside of us that is much wider than we are led to believe- and with the body in motion, we aim to indulge it. Each week we will explore a different access point into our minds, matter and imagination to expand how we perceive and move through our reality. Through group/duet movement, writing, choreography and improvisation we will explore lessons and stories the body reveals and move outside of our perceived limitations.
Exploding Joints
Voice & Movement
Call Ja Baby
In this moisture between our tears of where we are and where we want to be.
Your Liberation is my Liberation
Shake
Bodyroll
*Donations are welcomed for artist-led workshops.